The Walking Dead Movie Writer Compares Rick Grimes’ Return to Logan Movie

The Walking Dead movie marking Andrew Lincoln's return as Rick Grimes is similar to Hugh Jackman's X-Men swan song Logan, says screenwriter Scott Gimple, who is developing the franchise's first feature film to be inviting to incoming audiences and longtime Walking Dead viewers alike. The gritty and R-rated Logan followed Jackman's metal-clawed mutant, once the X-Man known as Wolverine, in a different setting in the wake of a traumatic event that killed multiple members of the X-Men. The tonally different Logan borrowed history from Jackman's 17-year run as the character but was not directly tied to preceding X-Men movies, a type of accessibility Gimple aims to replicate with the untitled Walking Dead movie:

The first movie in what is being plotted as a trilogy has to "honor people who have invested the time in their lives and the show, but we can't do that at the expense of inviting everybody," Gimple told ComicBook.com's Brandon Davis over Comic-Con weekend. "[Avengers: Endgame] was the culmination of years and years and years and years of stuff, but I'm sure people who just showed up had a good time."

Rick disappeared from The Walking Dead television series alongside Anne (Pollyanna McIntosh), both shuttled away aboard a helicopter taking them to a new corner of the zombie apocalypse not yet explored in the connected live-action Walking Dead Universe.

The movie trilogy will involve characters first introduced on television and follow up on events from past seasons of The Walking Dead, but like Logan, Gimple says, "You didn't have to watch every X-Men movie to enjoy that."

"Rick has a history and the history will be present within him and it'll be a big part of who he is, but it's likely going to be a very different Rick that we see as well," Gimple said. "New audiences will be like, 'Oh, that's the guy. I want to discover that past history.' We who know it so well, it's like, 'Oh crap, that's the thing that's weighing on him from the past.'"

"You gotta invite both those people, which we try to do with the shows," he added.

Gimple, doubling as screenwriter and chief content officer for all things Walking Dead, also told us Lincoln is "super involved" with the making of the movie and the actor is "itching to get back" to the Rick Grimes role after stepping away from the show in its ninth season.

AMC, Skybound Entertainment and Universal Pictures have not revealed a release date for the untitled Walking Dead Movie. For all things TWD, follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter.